Even though Crow had overheard Melissa firmly warn her son that watching Crow work meant sitting quietly at a distance, Crow figured for a kid like that, it was just a matter of time before curiosity killed the cat. So keeping that in mind, Crow started being extra careful not to leave any demolition debris lying around on the lawn. The last thing he needed was the little mother totally freaking out because her kid got stuck by a saw blade.
Besides, Crow figured he owed her.
Because in the past couple of days, at any given moment, he had Melissa Raymoor to thank for the fact that he had not hit full throttle and ridden out hell bent to find Patrick Murphy or Jaci. Or both of them.
And kill them.
Safe to say that looking at the cottage next door was the only thing that stopped him.
Maybe it was the whitewash on the clapboards.
Or the flowers in the window sill.
Or because she had planted a goddamn herb garden. A little patch of rich soil thick with mint, and oregano whose fragrance wafted through the air with every slight breeze. When he breathed it in, it calmed him.
What was it that Patrick had called that? A woman’s touch.
Yeah. That was it.
Crow had gotten himself a good laugh more than once mulling that one over. Because keeping a neat yard and a clean house sure as hell was not what a woman’s touch meant in outlaw nation.
But he was good with it.
Because after all was said and fucking done, Crow appreciated all the hard work Melissa had put into the place.
Certainly no one else had given a fuck.
Not Jaci who had had a piece of prime real-estate handed to her on a silver platter. And not Patrick Murphy, who even though he talked a good game, should never have let the place have gone to shit without putting in a damn phone call to him.
Only Melissa with her sick kid and dead husband had given two shits.
Chapter 7
She blew Jett a kiss and waved until the yellow school bus rode out of sight. Then Melissa sighed heavily and headed down the graveled driveway. She wished with all her heart that she could just keep on going home, but instead she forced herself to turn into the walkway. The man who had unleashed his fury on the house next door frightened her and not just a little. He was loud and seemed angry all the time even from a distance. But she had put this off longer than she should have. The note that sat like a heavy stone in her pocket gave evidence to that.
Now Melissa stood in front of the large oak doors. She took a firm hold of her courage, rang the doorbell and waited. Then she had to ring again and wait some more.
Damn. That. Man.
Suddenly the heavy door was thrown open and Melissa was hit with a narrowed glare. She was momentarily taken aback by the piercing color of Crow’s eyes. She had not seen him up close since that first meeting and never without his sunglasses on, but Melissa thought his eyes would be dark and menacing.
Just like the rest of him.
She had not expected to be pinned by two glittering gems of the purest green that she had ever seen.
As white teeth snarled at her from full red lips, Melissa fought to steady herself. The rough dark scruff on Crow’s jaw line coupled with his heavily inked and muscled arms gave Melissa a sense of the raw power and brute strength that emanated from this man.
Where the hell did he come from? She thought men like him existed only in legends and fairy tales. That they dwelled only in the deepest darkest woodland where they could do no harm. This creature’s whole being screamed dark, dangerous, compelling and something that would never be more than half tame. The sheer force of his magnetism and raw masculinity hit Melissa with the blasting heat of the Santa Ana winds.
Pushing reason aside.
She realized she had lost about a minute just staring at his naked chest.
“Yeah?” Crow growled.
Melissa looked up to meet sleepy eyes.
“Good morning, Mr. Mathison,” she said.
He gave no sign that he had heard her.
This was going well. Melissa felt the heat flush through her body and knew her ears had just turned bright red.
“Yeah, I guess it is one.” His voice sounded low and gravelly, still heavy from sleep.
“I need you to do something for me,” she said quickly before she lost her nerve.
He leaned against the door jamb then and let an amused, slow, hungry look skim over her body.
“Well, then this just might be your lucky day. It just so happens that I got a few things I wouldn't mind you doing for me this morning either.” His gaze fastened on her mouth.
At those words and the look in Crow's eyes, Melissa felt something deep inside of her clench and flutter. But then she forced herself to let out a deep breath and focus on what she came for.
“This is serious,” she frowned.
"What makes you think I'm not serious?" He ran a hand lazily over his hard stomach. After a long pause, crinkles began to radiate from the corners of his eyes and a hint of a smirk pulled his mouth.
Melissa’s natural shyness turned her blush from red to purple. She swallowed the lump in her throat and forced herself to meet his eyes in a clear challenge. She was not going to leave without making herself understood in no uncertain terms.
Crow regarded her silently and slowly the self-satisfied smirk left his face and his eyes softened maybe just a little.
“Tell me what you need,” he said finally.
“Your language,” Melissa blurted out.
“My language?” Humor flashed across his face again as he raised a dark eyebrow.
“Yes. While you're here, while you're working, I'd appreciate it if you could be more careful with your word choices.” Melissa threw him a nervous glance.
“My word… what? Why the fuck would I do that? It’s my house last time I looked.” Crow glowered, reminding Melissa of the big bad wolf in Little Red Riding Hood.
The better to eat you with.
Melissa knew exactly how the unsuspecting girl must have felt.
“Sometimes the words you use are just plain… disgusting. And I have a little boy who doesn’t need to be hearing that every minute of the day.” Melissa forced the words out of her mouth in a long deliberate breath.
“Maybe you should teach your kid that he shouldn’t be listening to things that don’t concern him then.” Crow’s eyes bored into hers.
Really?Melissa recognized the look of arrogance from that first meeting suddenly return to Crow’s face.
“Nobody is eavesdropping on you for God’s sake, but we can’t help but hear you. This is a quiet area. Sound travels. And you preface everything with cuss words,” she threw back at him, her shyness now replaced with righteous indignation.
“Cuss words? I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.” Crow reached over and grabbed a beer out of the cooler by the door.
“It’s eight o’clock in the morning.” Melissa spouted out and looked pointedly at the brew in his hands.
“Yeah, I know that. And you coming over here to bitch me out… that couldn’t wait till say …noon?” Crow raised an eyebrow.
Unbelievable this guy!
“I was hoping to catch you when you were sober.” Melissa flung back at him.
Crow snorted and popped the can open.
Melissa reached up and wiped the beer spray from her collar bone in disgust. She took a small step back then thought better of it and stepped forward. Being the daughter and granddaughter of two fairly well-known bookies, Melissa had had dealt with morning drunks before.
“Can you please just watch your language? We can live with your banging and hammering all hours of the day and night, but he's only six years old and he doesn't need to hear that kind of talk.” Melissa tried again.
Crow folded his arms and leaned back.
“You don’t swear? The kid’s never heard a swear word?”
This conversation was not going at all how she thought it would.
“Well, I try not to. I mean, I say the occasional hell or damn I guess,” she allowed.
“The last I heard the occasional hell or damn are still… cuss words.” He gave her a calculating look. “Does that kid of yours run to a corner with his hands over his ears when he hears ‘em?”
“No, of course not,” she answered.
“Then I don't see a problem. I'm going back to bed. You can either come on in and put that mouth of yours to a better use, or you can get your ass off my porch.” Crow took another hit off the beer, eyed her over the can and waited.
With effort, Melissa decided not to rise to the disgusting bait. He was deliberately trying to throw her off center. She stayed exactly where she was.
“The problem is that my son is repeating what he’s hearing,” Melissa persisted. “I got a note from the teacher yesterday saying that he’s been testing out some pretty nasty words on the playground. Jett knows better and I talked to him about it, but since you moved in he’s been fascinated by it all. By you.”
“Fascinated?” Crow finished the rest of the brew and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
“That surprises you?” she asked. “The power tools, the motorcycle, the roof climbing and nail gunning. That is like superhero stuff to a little boy. The other day when you were burning the brush out by the pond I almost had to tie him down to stop him from running down to help.”
Crow tossed the empty can in the general direction of the trash barrel. His expression softened for a minute. He looked at her in appraisal.
“That’s still parenting shit. You said yourself that you use… what the hell did you call them? Cuss words once in a fucking while. How do you know that note isn’t about words he heard from you?”
“I know,” she shot out.
“How?” His voice rife with curiosity.
Melissa pushed back her shoulders and took a deep breath then exhaled in an exaggerated sigh. Because now he was really pissing her off.
“Saying the words damn or hell softly under my breath once in a great while is different than hearing the guy next door yell out things like ‘This motherfucking, cocksucking chainsaw better fucking start or I’m going to rip someone’s balls off.’”
Melissa pursed her lips, flung both hands on her hips and waited.
Crow's gaze flashed amused surprise before they took another long slow sweep over her.
All of a sudden a broad predatory smile split his face.
She forced herself to stand still as his eyes lingered much too long on her breasts and then zeroed in on her mouth.
“Say that one more time.” He stepped in close to her and leaned in intimately so that Melissa could feel the heat of this body and smell the beer on his breath.
“Are you crazy? Why would you want me to repeat that?” she asked with unease.
“Not the whole thing. Just the cocksucking part. I liked what happened to your mouth when you said that,” he teased her with a lazy smile.
Melissa gasped.
The dirty-minded, foul-mouthed, low-life degenerate…
Her thoughts were interrupted as she felt him firmly take her chin in his hand and run the pad of his thumb across her rounded lips.
“Yeah, I liked it. A lot.” Crow’s eyes were filled with dark amusement.
Melissa slapped his hand away hard and then she stepped back away from him.
“You know what, Crow? You really are an asshole.” She threw out at him with anger.
Before he could say another word, she turned and walked down the little path that would bring her home.
“Asshole is still a cuss word, darlin’,” he called out mockingly.
Without missing a step, Melissa threw her arm up and backward.
Then she raised her hand high to make sure he could see her middle finger.
Chapter 8
As a result of that early morning visit, two things happened.
One was that Crow started to take more notice of Jett and the words he used when the kid was within easy earshot.
And the second thing was that Crow found that he got enormous personal satisfaction out of pissing Melissa off.
So feeling that, Crow went out of his way to use the loudest and most foul language possible whenever he knew that Melissa was home alone. He cheerily watched as she scowled at him from an open window before she upped the volume of her music and slammed the doors and windows of the little cottage when he let loose.
A couple of times when he had really given it his all, she had huffed and puffed and marched across her lawn. There she had stood in the driveway with hell to pay in her eyes. One small hand had sat jauntily on her hip and the other had toyed nonstop with that chain around her neck.
Crow had halted what he was doing and glared right back at Melissa, daring her to come across the property line and let him have it.
To his immense disappointment, she did not.
But that didn’t stop him from trying.
Crow knew the last goddamn thing he needed was a fascination with the little brown hen of a widow next door.
But there it was.
Because when it actually came down to it, Crow knew that his earlier assessment of Melissa had been dead on. There was definitely more to Mousy Melissa than met the eye. No doubt, she gave off that white-bread soccer mom kind of vibe.
But when she had shown up at his doorstep all fierce and determined…cocksucker and motherfucker rolled a little too easily off her tongue.
She had barely flinched when he sprayed her with that beer foam.
The way she flung her shoulders back and put that hand on her hip and flipped him the bird—that was hood shit.
However, he noticed that his restraint of using cuss words when Jett was home had resulted in Melissa allowing her kid to spend more and more time out on that picnic bench watching Crow's every move. And lately Jett had been throwing out all kinds of questions that he seemed pretty confident that Crow knew the answers to.
Crow found that he didn't mind that at all.
***
“Hey, Crow!” Jett called out to him from his perch on the picnic table. “You gonna work on your motorcycle today?”
“Yeah.” Crow nodded, grabbed the tool box out of the van, and slid the door closed.
To his surprise Jett got off his bench and began to follow him to the side yard. But he supposed that technically the side yard was the kid’s yard too.
“Hey, my dad used to have a tool box just like that!” Jett called out excitedly. Then he added thoughtfully, “I don’t know where it is, though.”
Crow threw a casual glance over his shoulder at the boy. “It’s probably in the cottage somewhere.” Crow figured Melissa couldn’t have gotten the shit she had done in the house without some hardware.
Jett shook his head with certainty. “No. It’s not.”
“Well, I’m sure your mom knows where it is.” Crow put the box on the grass. “Ask her.”
“She probably don’t know either. My mom sold almost all our stuff and then we moved. Because my daddy died.” The little boy looked hard at Crow.
“Bad break.” Crow turned and gave Jett the full attention this share deserved.
“She don’t think I remember him, but I do,” Jett told him. “I kinda forget what he looks like, but I remember that tool box, ‘cause sometimes when my dad came home, he used to fix stuff and I used to watch him. Just like I watch you.”
Crow felt something tighten in his chest.
“Why does your mom think you don’t remember your dad?” Crow asked carefully.
“Because she don’t talk to me about him. Even when I ask her stuff.” Jett looked down at the ground and shrugged. “She just makes a sad face. And I don’t like that face. So I stopped askin’.”
Poor fucking kid.
“But it’s okay.” Jett assured Crow. “Lots of kids in school don’t have ‘em either. And my mom used to be sad all the time. She smiles more now. I’m glad you didn’t make us move.”<
br />
Then, typical of a boy Jett’s age, he moved quickly onto the next topic.
“Is that heavy?” He pointed to the tool box.
“Heavy enough.” Crow indulged him. “Give it a shot.”
“Really?” Jett looked at Crow wide-eyed.
“Yeah. Check it out. Use two hands.”
“Argghhhh.” Jett struggled to lift the box an inch off the ground, where he held it for a millisecond before dropping it back down with a thud. Crow smirked to himself when he saw Jett’s little chest puff out with pride.
“You see that? Someday I’m gonna have muscles just like you. Mom said I’m getting stronger every day and this morning I got to carry in the heavy bag.”
Crow shot Jett a quizzical look.
“When we were bringing in the groceries.” Jett explained. “Usually my mom just lets me carry the bag with the napkins, and the cereal and the bread.”
“The light stuff.” Crow nodded his understanding and knelt down next to the bike.
“Yep. But today she let me carry the bag with the milk and eggs in it,” Jett boasted.
“That’s big.” Crow lifted off the crank case cover.
“Yep, I think so too. I was real worried I would drop them, but Toni said that if I did, it just meant that the birds would get scrambled eggs for supper.”
Crow’s head snapped over to look at Jett. “Tony?”
Tony?
“Yeah. Toni.” Jett pointed to a tool in the box. “Is that a wrench?”
“No.” Crow picked up the tool and handed it to Jett. “It’s a screwdriver. Tony’s your mom’s friend?”
No fucking wonder Melissa was smiling more now.
“I got a Mitch the Mechanic book for Christmas and this don’t look like the screw driver in the picture.” Jett frowned at the tool.
“It’s a Phillips head. What kind of friends are Tony and your mom?” Crow fought to keep his voice even as a wave of jealousy washed over him.
Jett shrugged. “The only kind she likes, I guess. My mom don’t have a lot of friends. What’s this called?”
Taming Crow (Hells Saints Motorcycle Club) Page 5
